


Not Meant to See This

by fizzygingr



Category: Kamen Rider Build
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, New World, Post-Finale, Sharing a Bed, but they do that in canon too so i mean, can be read as platonic, helplessness/powerlessness, i mean they share a bed and snuggle, mutual hurt and mutual comfort, parasol worlds, since they're way better at taking care of each other than themselves, technically major character death but also not, which is good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 07:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19848835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzygingr/pseuds/fizzygingr
Summary: In the void between worlds, they saw glimpses of other worlds. In some of them, maybe things turned out okay. In the one Banjou remembers, Sento died in his arms.





	Not Meant to See This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cheesethesecond](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheesethesecond/gifts).



> Sometimes I take the angst train all the way to nopeville.  
> (Well, not ALL the way, I guess there's one way I could have made it worse...)

In the void between worlds, they see glimpses of other worlds, other possibilities.

“See” is the wrong word, really. It’s almost like they live them, become a part of them for a moment in time, as much as time existed there. They forget it as soon as they come out, because it’s something they were never meant to see. But little things make Banjou wonder: a smell in the air that makes him suddenly, gut-wrenchingly sad, a song that makes his fists tighten, a certain color on Sento that makes him overwhelmingly fond.

It’s weeks later, though, before one of the memories really comes back.

_ He doesn’t know why, but he knows that Evolt didn’t need Sento anymore, had no reason to keep him alive, so he didn’t. He didn’t, simple as that, just shot him and laughed and vanished before Banjou could land a punch, and his fists went through the spot where Evolt had been and slammed into gravel, kept slamming over and over, and then Kazumi was screaming him back to reality and reality was Sento bleeding on the ground, whimpering, shuddering in Banjou’s arms. There were quicker ways to kill him, less painful, but Evolt was nothing if not cruel. At least he could say goodbye, he thought, and then revolted against the thought because no, this wasn’t goodbye, it couldn’t be. Sento was gasping out apologies, “I’m sorry” and “I failed” and “Everyone’s going to be sad now,” and Banjou held him furiously, as if with enough brute strength he could hold him together. _

Sento's fading, his breath rattles and then stops, and then Banjou wakes up screaming, grasping for the familiar shape on the other side of the bed. Relief washes over him when he finds it; he knows what he saw, but he also knows the feeling under his hands: Sento’s shoulders, Sento’s neck, Sento’s hair. He clings greedily to what he has; it’s solid and his.

“Hey. Hey, Banjou,” Sento whispers, reaching for his face. A finger brushes against him, smudging hot tears across his cheek. “It’s okay.” He keeps murmuring nonsense as Banjou presses his face into his shoulder. “Shh, I'm here, it was just a dream.”

“Not a dream,” he chokes out in response.

“What, then?”

Banjou reaches for his hand; Sento grabs his fingers, holds them, quells the shaking just a little bit. Gives him just enough strength to breathe, and to ask.

“Did you…” he begins. “Did you see them? The other worlds? There weren’t just the two, Sento, there were more, and some of them…”

He trails off, hoping to be interrupted with an answer. Maybe Sento will give him a lecture, explaining that  _ of course _ those worlds he saw were just illusions, or echoes of what could have been, and he’s got to be a real musclehead to think that really happened somewhere. Sento doesn’t speak at all, though, only pulls away and sits up. In the beam of moonlight that falls across him, he looks suddenly grave. He knows, Banjou realizes, pushing himself up to join him. He’s seen them too. 

“What happened, Banjou?” he asks.

“You died.”

Sento doesn’t respond or try to deflect with a joke; he just continues to sit in silence. As it stretches on, Banjou’s mind fills in the other details he’d forgotten. He remembers Kazumi dragging him back to the cafe in a daze, his body moving on its own, like it belonged to someone else. He remembers Misora asking what happened to Sento, and the two of them unable to answer her, unable to make it real. He remembers her grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him and then falling against his chest. He remembers Sento’s blood staining her face when she pulled away.

The last image has him screaming again, lurching forward to bury his face in his knees. Sento’s arm is around him in a second. But he’s past the initial relief of having him here, and this time the comfort is tinged with guilt. Why does he get to have Sento here, in this world? He wonders if, out of all the versions, he’s the only one. He wonders how he could possibly deserve that.

“You  _ died, _ Sento!” he shouts into his knees, “and I watched! And I remember it like it happened to me. I mean, it did happen to me! A different me, in a different world, but it happened, you…” 

Sento squeezes his arm as he chokes back a sob. “It’s okay,” he says. His voice is measured, and only a little strained. “I’m right here, Banjou, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay! How is it okay?”

“Banjou…”

“It still happened!”

“Yes, it happened. But not to me. Not to us.”

“And that makes it okay, then?” He pulls Sento’s arm off his forcefully and climbs out of bed. He’s burning hot with anger now as he paces the floor. “There’s a version of me that doesn’t get to wake up from that. There’s a version of Misora, and Sawa, and…there’s a version of you that  _ died,  _ Sento! Hurt and bled and died!”

“Are you…” Sento wrinkles his brow and almost smiles. “Are you angry at me for dying in a parallel universe?”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“Then what?”

“I’m angry because somewhere out there our friends are hurting and I can’t help them! And I couldn’t help you!”

He blows his nose on his t-shirt once, then twice, then pulls the shirt over his head, grabs a slightly cleaner one off the floor, and puts that on instead. When he looks up again, Sento has tears in his eyes.

“I know,” he says. “I know, Banjou, I hate it too.” 

The restless energy drains out of Banjou as quickly as it came. Sento’s not heartless, of course not. He’s got a heart so big the weight crushes him sometimes. So big it takes two people to carry it.

He sits back down on the bed and leans against the pillows, pulling Sento back to join him. From there, it’s easy enough to release some of the tension from Sento’s shoulders; all he has to do is lean his head against him, and make him feel like he’s the one doing the comforting.

Banjou feels Sento brush his lips to his forehead before speaking. “We were supposed to forget the worlds,” he says. “But I still remember pieces of them. I was hoping it would just be me.”

“I don’t want it to just be you.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Maybe it is.”

Sento laughs softly, and continues. “In some of them, we succeeded, but in some of them...in some of them, people are hurting, because I failed them. And I can’t fix that.”

“You didn’t fail them, Sento.”

“Fine, some version of me—”

“He didn’t fail them, either.”

“What would you call it, then, Banjou? A success?”

“I mean, no, but you...I...he… _ argh! _ ” Banjou groans in frustration. He can’t blame Sento, any Sento, for getting killed, but the words in his head about failure and success and blame are all muddled, and he can’t make them come out right.

Sento gives him a smug smile. “See?”

Banjou doesn’t smile back. A moment ago he was trying to convince Sento of the awfulness of all this; now he just wants to see him stop hurting. “I’m not saying it’s okay.” He thinks of Sento bleeding on the ground, then shakes his head to clear the image. “It’s  _ not _ okay. But as much as we want to, we can’t change it. So what are we going to do?”

“The only thing we can,” says Sento. “Move forward.” He sighs, letting himself sink deeper down until he’s lying flat on the bed. “Fight for love and peace.” Banjou joins him, pulling the covers up around them both. It’s easier, when he listens to Sento’s steady breathing, to make his own breath match that pace. And he knows that makes it easier for Sento in turn, which is why he makes damn well sure to do it.

“Love and peace,” he echoes, curling his arm around Sento’s chest. Sento pats his shoulder in response. This is what they have: this version, this world, their choices, their future. It will have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @bodhimcbodeface or twitter @fizzyells


End file.
